East Coast dockworkers agreed to end their two-day strike after coming to a “tentative agreement on wages” with the United States Maritime Alliance, the International Longshoremen’s Association and USMX said in a joint statement Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news of the agreement, said the “breakthrough” came when USMX offered a 62% wage increase over six years. The employers group had made a 50% offer earlier.
The two sides have extended their current contract and will keep negotiating until Jan. 15 to finalize a new one. They still have to come to an agreement on difficult issues such as automation and container royalties.
ADM halts carbon injections at its Decatur site
EPA says ADM has shut down a carbon injection well after detecting a “suspected leak” at another monitoring well at its carbon sequestration site in Decatur, Illinois.
On Sept. 27 ADM told EPA it had, “as a proactive measure,” temporarily stopped injections at its carbon sequestration project in Decatur, Illinois, the agency said. EPA issued a proposed enforcement order Sept. 19 directing ADM to conduct the additional testing due to “alleged violations related to holes in the other monitoring well at the site.”
ADM said it had received preliminary data showing “potential brine (salty water) movement between different formations at a depth of approximately 5,000 feet. There is no impact to the surface or groundwater sources, nor any threat to public health.”
House Oversight Committee re-ups calls for information on DGAs, alcohol studies
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has issued subpoenas to USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services as part of an investigation into the development of the next Dietary Guidelines for Americans and recommendations on alcohol consumption.
A letter signed by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., says HHS exerted improper authority with a 2022 request for the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking to study alcohol intake and health to inform the DGAs. In the subpoena, lawmakers note that ICCPUD is not beholden to Federal Advisory Committee Act requirements on information sharing.
The committee is concerned HHS is attempting to duplicate and potentially undermine a congressionally mandated study on the impact of alcohol intake on health. The study, carried out by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is intended to inform the 2025 DGAs and was mandated in 2023 congressional appropriations.
While both studies address alcohol intake and health, there are key differences, including the methods used and the types of outcomes examined, according to USDA.
The committee wants to determine if legislation is necessary to address federal agencies’ authority to alter the responsibilities and topics of an interagency Federal Advisory Committee.
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This latest letter re-ups an April subpoena by the committee, which Comer says USDA and HHS have not fully complied with. USDA has provided nearly 400 pages of documents, but many of these were already available online and are largely unrelated to the committee’s request, according to the latest subpoena.
“USDA is aware of the committee’s subpoena and will respond accordingly,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.
Bonnie: Helene left enormous ag impacts
Robert Bonnie, USDA’s undersecretary for farm production and conservation, says Hurricane Helene has done severe damage to poultry houses, cotton crops, pecan orchards and most other commodities in its path.
Bonnie, speaking on this week’s Agri-Pulse Newsmakers, says there are many “impacts outside the cone of the storm,” including damage to infrastructure, center irrigation pivots and ag equipment that may not be insured. He says farms with $7 billion in crop insurance coverage were in the storm’s path.
By the way: Bonnie says the 2022 disaster aid package from Congress “shortchanged farmers” because it only provided $3.7 billion for over $10 billion in damage. USDA has come under heavy criticism for the way it pro-rated the aid. Bonnie says USDA “had to make decisions” about who received the financial support. Congressional appropriators are likely to give USDA more direction in how to allocate aid for Helene losses, assuming an aid package materializes.
Hear more from Peter Friedmann with the Ag Transportation Coalition and Danny Munch from the American Farm Bureau Federation about ag transportation issues on this week’s Newsmakers episode.
Warren goes after Deere on right to repair
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is accusing farm equipment manufacturer John Deere of potential Clean Air Act violations, alleging the company "continues to intentionally omit information about repair rights from its manuals.”
In a letter to John Deere CEO John May, Warren also criticized a software tool aimed at increasing farmers’ abilities to diagnose and fix equipment on their own.
Deere declined to comment on Warren’s letter.
Bill would require FSA to set up pre-approval loan process for new, young farmers
Three Senate Agriculture Committee members have introduced a bill to help new and young farmers get access to capital.
Legislation backed by Sens. Peter Welch, D-Vt., John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Tina Welch, D-Minn., would direct the Farm Service Agency to create a pilot program to establish a pre-approval process for FSA direct ownership loans.
“Having a pre-approved FSA loan will enable farmers, including young and beginning producers, to act quickly when farmland becomes available and make them more competitive in the real estate market,” Hoeven said.
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